by David Mack
It was what his own conscience had been telling him since his first day on Vanguard.
24
Despite having visited the Vault only twice before, Vanessa Theriault thought the lab felt strangely off-kilter without any civilians manning its stations. The few that hadn’t been directly dismissed from the project and the station by Starfleet Command’s edict had chosen to leave with Doctor Marcus, in a profound demonstration of ethical solidarity. In their place, Xiong had recruited Theriault and more than two dozen of the best scientific personnel from the station and the Endeavour. Apparently, the project had been deemed urgent enough that Starfleet Command had approved upgraded security clearances for all those who had to be brought up to speed on the true nature of the Shedai and the objectives of Operation Vanguard.
“We’re getting ready to power up the array,” Xiong announced. “Everyone stand by and keep a close eye on your readouts. If you see anything that’s been flagged as a hazard, speak up.” He stepped back behind the clear partition and took his place between Theriault and Lieutenant Stephen Klisiewicz at the master control console. “Initiate start-up sequence.”
Theriault, who was tasked with monitoring transmissions and emissions of energy to and from the array, confirmed, “All readings nominal. Throughput is steady, no distortion.”
Klisiewicz made a few fine adjustments at his panel. “System interface is up. All checksums are valid, and it looks like we have clear signals from all nodes.”
Xiong asked, “How’s Node One?”
That was the designation for the array’s only occupied crystalline artifact. The operating system Klisiewicz had designed using the new intel from T’Prynn had made it possible to monitor the status of every linked node in the array and identify each by a unique number.
“Containment’s solid, boss,” Theriault said. “No change in output.”
“So far, so good,” Xiong said. He rubbed his hands together before setting them back on the master controls. “Okay, folks, time for step two. We’re going to slowly increase the power from standby level to what we estimate is the normal operating level. Look sharp.”
With one fingertip, he gradually traced the outline of a circle on his panel, and it responded by switching from cool blue to bright red at his touch. A low-frequency hum from inside the isolation chamber sent a sympathetic shiver down Theriault’s spine.
“Fifty percent,” Xiong said, still nudging the power levels upward.
The deep droning from the array increased in volume and pitch. Crooked bands of blue lightning hopscotched over the linked crystals. Xiong called out, “Sixty percent.”
“Interface is still five by five,” Klisiewicz said. “Good to go.”
Xiong looked left toward Theriault. “Energy readings?”
His request broke the machine’s spell over her, and she eyed her gauges. “Pass-through is clean, no distortion. Minor fluctuations in output from Node One.” She double-checked the levels against their redlines. “All readings are within rated norms. Good to go.”
“Substations,” Xiong said, his voice echoing from the lab’s PA system, “any red flags?”
The ring of blue-shirted Starfleet specialists all worked in silence, and then Ensign Kirsten Heffron, a much-lauded wunderkind of biophysics and quantum chemistry who had been assigned as the out-station supervisor for this experiment, signaled “good to go” via her console’s link to the lab’s secure internal network.
“Grab your socks, then,” Xiong said, increasing the power. “Seventy percent.”
The droning oscillated in an eerie manner, and the high-pitched sound developed a deep contrapuntal undertone that filled Theriault with sensations of dread. The same blue ribbons of energy that danced across the array began to appear spontaneously outside the isolation chamber—climbing the walls, snaking over consoles, and twisting up and around the scientists manning the stations that surrounded the chamber. Theriault arched one eyebrow as she watched an energy ribbon snake over her green jumpsuit. “That doesn’t look good.”
Over the PA, Xiong said in his most reassuring voice, “It’s all right, don’t be alarmed. It’s harmless. The systems are insulated against this, and it’ll disperse as it’s drawn up to the grounding coils in the ceiling.” Moments later, as he’d predicted, the phenomenon ceased, and all that was left were the fear-inducing banshee wails and groans of the machine. “Increasing power to eighty percent.”
Theriault shuddered as an intense prickling coursed through her body, starting in her feet and traveling up her spine. It stung her head with heat and left a metallic taste in her mouth. She heard a static-electric crackling, then caught her faint reflection on the transparent shield in front of the master console: her hair was standing on end, floating as if in zero gravity. “This is a new look for me,” she quipped. “Also temporary, I hope?”
“It should pass in a few seconds after the array’s capacitors catch up,” Xiong said. He asked the group, “Everyone all right?” Reports of status: nominal came back from every station, and he increased the power. “Coming up on ninety percent.”
“We’re getting action from Node One,” Theriault said as one of her gauges jumped in output. “Signal output is up three hundred percent and climbing.”
Excited and concerned at the same time, Xiong asked, “Containment?”
“Locked down tight,” Theriault said. “Good to go.”
“Ramping up to full power in ten seconds,” Xiong said. “Steve, stand by to bring mission applications on line as soon as we have a green signal.” Klisiewicz nodded.
As the array thrummed and pulsed to full power, the atmosphere inside the Vault took on a quality that Theriault could describe only as narcotic. Some unknown property of the array, some emanation that Federation science hadn’t yet quantified, made the immeasurably powerful device simultaneously hypnotizing and thrilling. It became a labor to tear her eyes from it to monitor her panel’s readouts. She forced herself to blink and look away until her focus returned, despite the siren song of the machine’s unearthly resonance.
“Full power,” Xiong said. “Load mission apps. I want to see what this thing can do.”
Klisiewicz launched a series of programs, most of which had been written and designed based only on the first artifact the Vault team had acquired. A number of simulations had suggested that the same control interfaces would be scalable to the much more sophisticated demands of the array; Theriault hoped the simulations proved correct. She didn’t want to imagine what might happen if a system channeling as much power as was being fed into the array were to suffer a rapid cascade failure. At the very least, she doubted anyone would ever find her body—or much of the station, for that matter.
“I think I have something,” Klisiewicz said. Xiong and Theriault pressed in to watch over his shoulders as he worked at his panel. “This is the program your team wrote for detecting Shedai energy signatures. It can read everything from Jinoteur Pattern sources to passive Conduit responses to living Shedai.” He processed a batch of new data, resulting in one enormous cluster of red and a multihued flurry of far-flung specks. “This is what we just picked up with the array.”
Theriault squinted to see if perhaps she had missed something other than the dots. “So, what exactly are we looking at here?”
“The blue are Conduits,” Xiong said. “The red are living Shedai.” He pointed at the cluster. “And it looks like they’re having some kind of town meeting.”
“It’s a Colloquium,” Theriault blurted out. Klisiewicz and Xiong looked at her. “It’s what they call it when they gather to make decisions. It’s what they were doing on Jinoteur when the Sagittarius crashed there.”
Xiong sounded worried. “I thought they’d been scattered.”
“I guess they got the band back together,” Theriault said.
“Most of them, anyway,” Klisiewicz added. “We’re showing a few stragglers.”
Pointing at some of the sidebar menu items on the scree
n, Theriault asked, “Can you show us exactly where they are in relation to the station?”
“In theory, yes.” Klisiewicz entered commands as he spoke. “I’m overlaying a local star map and tactical grid. That should give us a fair idea of where they . . .” His voice trailed off as the composite graphic took shape on his screen. Xiong seemed about to ask what was wrong, but then he, too, stared slackjawed at the display. Growing more alarmed by the minute, Theriault leaned forward to get a clearer view—and regretted it immediately.
“Oh, that is not good,” she said.
Xiong stood in the station commander’s office facing Nogura, T’Prynn, and Captains Nassir and Khatami. The four senior officers stood side by side, their stances and grave aspects giving Xiong the impression that he was facing a rhetorical firing squad. “To be precise,” he said, continuing his report, “Lieutenant Klisiewicz made three very alarming discoveries.”
He inserted a yellow data card into a slot beside Nogura’s wall-sized star chart. “I’m sure you all recognize this map of the Taurus Reach.” With a tap on one button, he superimposed over the map the Shedai sensor data produced by the array. “Long story short: the blue dots are Conduits. There are a lot more than we thought, and some appear to be within the boundaries of Federation space. That’s the first bit of bad news. The second is that the red dots represent living Shedai entities, and it seems like almost all of them still in existence have gathered on Velara II, out by the Pleiades Cluster.”
“That puts them roughly three hundred light-years away,” Nassir said.
T’Prynn replied, “Three hundred fifteen-point-seven, Captain.”
Khatami looked confused. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“No,” Xiong said, “because one of those red dots”—he magnified the center of the map until it showed one red dot, one blue dot, and a green dot—“is right here.”
Nogura’s eyes widened. “Please tell me we are not the green dot.”
“Unfortunately, we are.” Xiong added annotations to the image. “There’s a Shedai lurking just outside the range of our tactical sensors, and it’s got a previously unknown Conduit with it. According to intelligence gathered over the last couple of years, the only Shedai that’s known to be able to move freely through interstellar space is the one we captured—and lost—last year.” He gestured at the wall monitor. “Well, it looks like you were right, Admiral. She’s been holding a grudge, and now she’s back.”
That news seemed to hit Nogura hard. He walked up to the screen and stared at it, point-blank, as if it would give up secrets if only he looked closely enough. “Options.”
“What’s there to talk about?” asked Nassir. “We know where it is, let’s go and get it.”
The admiral shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”
Nassir verged on raising his voice. “Why not?”
“Because the Endeavour’s still under repair,” Nogura said. “And while your ship is an excellent scout, it’s hardly suited to combat.”
Xiong added, “Besides, Captain, we don’t even know if our weapons have much effect on the Shedai. The last time we tangled with this thing, we barely scratched it.”
“It is also worth noting,” T’Prynn said, “that when this Shedai last fled from here, it did so at speeds the Sagittarius was unable to match—or even detect. If we attempt to attack it by means of a direct starship assault, there is nothing to prevent it from escaping unscathed.”
Khatami seemed to share Nassir’s frustration. “So, we do nothing? We just sit and wait for it to take the initiative? For the record, I am not okay with that.”
“We will act, but not with starships,” Nogura said. “This Shedai has committed a tactical blunder, and I don’t intend to waste it.”
Nassir asked, “What blunder would that be, sir?”
“It chose us as its first target.” He returned to his desk and sat down. “If we go out there with starships, all we’re likely to do is scare it off. And there’s no guarantee its next attack will be here. It could just as well build its next Conduit on a Federation planet. That’s not a chance I’m willing to take.” He looked at Xiong. “Has there been any evidence of contact between that Shedai and the others?”
“Sporadic bursts of energy between their two Conduits,” Xiong said. “Our analysts think the Shedai are testing the new Conduit before putting it into full operation.”
T’Prynn asked, “How close do they seem to be?”
“Very. They could be ready to strike any time now.”
Nogura nodded. “Excellent. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.” He stood up. “Arm the array, Lieutenant. Now we attack.”
The array’s steady rhythm of pulsing sound and its macabre violet aura entranced Theriault, Klisiewicz, and the other Starfleet scientists as they helped Xiong activate its protocols. The air inside the Vault felt charged with their commingled excitement and fear as one monitoring station after another confirmed the array’s fully ready status.
“Locking in the coordinates of all Shedai energy signatures,” Klisiewicz said. “Calculating resonant attraction frequencies.”
“Acknowledged,” Xiong said. He looked left at Theriault. “Containment?”
“Node One is secure. Preparing unique node assignments for new signatures.”
Xiong checked his master panel. “All signals are clean, no interference. Heffron, ping the Conduits. Verify we have contact on all points.”
Beyond the protective barrier, Ensign Heffron keyed in commands. “Transmitting.” Several seconds later, she added, “All Conduits responding. The network is active.”
Klisiewicz made his final adjustments on his panel. “Resonant frequencies ready.”
Theriault added, “Nodes assigned. Containment protocols ready.”
A grave nod from Xiong. He wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his shirt, then thumbed open a secure comm to Nogura’s office in the operations center. “Admiral, the array is ready. We can initiate Operation Flytrap as soon as you give the word.”
“The word is given, Lieutenant. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir. We’ll have a report for you shortly. Xiong out.” He closed the channel and took a deep breath. Theriault heard him mutter under his breath, “Now all we have to do is make ourselves an irresistible target to every Shedai in the galaxy. . . . What could go wrong?” Xiong blinked, cracked his knuckles, and set his hands on the master power controls. “Okay, everyone, it’s game time. Stand by to execute in . . . ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
Much to Theriault’s dismay, as she listened to Xiong continue the countdown to the activation of the array, she was able to think of a great many things that could go wrong.
Then Xiong said, “Three . . . two . . . one. . . . Execute!”
She and Klisiewicz flipped the final switches on their respective panels.
And the array started screaming.
The mind of the Progenitor stirred in the endless silence, a lone presence in the immeasurable darkness of thought without sensation, existence without form, time without end.
His accursed isolation, his exile into a limbo of his own consciousness, was disturbed by a shriek of primal force and a disorienting flurry of light and energy. It was inchoate, nothing but noise bereft of significance, a howling torrent of madness and desire.
Quickly, the chaos was marshaled into order and forced into shape. The Progenitor dared to indulge a fleeting instant of hope. Had the Wanderer returned to honor her pledge? Was freedom at hand? He imagined the unfettered joy of exacting his revenge upon the Telinaruul. . . .
Then came the agony.
Pain with no physical analog reduced the Progenitor’s universe to one of horrific psychic torment. It was as if his entire essence were being ripped asunder, his every thought rent to pieces, his very being torn in a million directions at once. Never had he known such grotesque suffering, not even when he’d been condemned to this private pit of despair.
All
he could do was surrender to the brutal energies that assailed him and let their wild surges of power course through him and bear him away, one mote of consciousness at a time, wearing him down to nothing, as flowing water reduces a boulder to a pebble with the passing of ages. He wondered if this was, at last, his end—being condemned to vanish in a final tide of punishment, flayed to his last iota of existence by a torment beyond his ken to describe.
For the first time since his moment of self-inception, the Progenitor was afraid.
Cold and silent, the Wanderer hovered in space above her newly made Conduit. She reached out with her thoughts to perfect its final details and make it a flawless portal for the subtle form of liberated consciousness. Its link to the universe’s boundless reservoir of dark energy was complete, and already she felt the Conduit’s steady emanations of power and harmony.
Soon it would be time to summon the Shedai to take their vengeance. Before that hour of reckoning, however, she needed to move the Conduit closer to the space fortress. It would be an arduous process, and it would require great patience and stealth on her part not to alert them to her presence. Because the other Serrataal lacked her ability to traverse space by will alone, it would be up to her to place the Conduit in contact with the exterior of the Telinaruul’s fortress, penetrate its fragile metal skin, and then usher her kin inside. Then they would cleanse its interior of its vermin creators—a prelude for the galactic culling to come.
A wail of terror issued from the Conduit and struck the Wanderer with overwhelming force. Driven by fear and reflex, she made her essence cohere when all she wanted to do was flee. The excruciating shrillness of the signal abated, and then the Wanderer knew what it was that she heard: the Song of the Progenitor! Its message was simple, pure, and clear. He was calling out to her, imploring her to answer his summons, to hie unto him without delay.
This was not the plan, she told herself, even as she felt her essence succumb to the Progenitor’s will. His voice was like that of no other Shedai; it was uniquely hypnotic and utterly compelling. Its beguiling melody transited the Conduit and called the other Serrataal.